Declining IQ of college grads

[Vixen]

When did you study psychology? I only ask because it would appear that your view of what constitutes 'the academic establishment's stance' is a little outdated. From the same wikipedia page I previously cited:




Now I'm no expert in this area (hence using wikipedia for my research), but I get the impression that the academic establishment has largely thrown his work in the bin.

ETA: It happens to all of us - when I was studying my minor in sound recording it was all DAT this, MiniDisc that & ZipDisc the other. ProTools was the future, man... nah, they're all dead. Time moves inexorably on, relentlessly grinding our dreams of the future beneath it's unbearably banal and inevitable wheels. What was fact becomes folly. What was hope becomes the dream of an idiot. What was established becomes horrendous. Especially when it's eugencs, because that is very horrendous.

You may not think that you are advocating eugenics, but you are defending the ideas and theories of a eugenicist.

This is functionally the same thing. It may not be deliberate. I hope and assume it isn't.

ETA 2: I noticed your little straw dollies. They have been added to the list. One day I may do something with them, if I can be arsed.

Whoa! I'm on your side. I quoted Eysenck et al as being well-known in the field of IQ testing and within the context of Nature ~vs~ Nurture only. Eysenck wrote mass paperbacks on the topic of IQ, hence the reference as being a name people might recognise.

What we are discussing here is the proposed claim that, 'IQ's are falling in graduates'. If you accept the concept that the g distribution, as measured by tests that claim to be correlated to g and 'normed' for significance levels - and psychologists generally agree - follows the pattern of a normal distribution, then the next reasonable question is, how much of this g factor is inherent and how much is learnt, i.e., due to environmental factors. The 80% - 20% is the figure much touted.

 

[Elaedith]

Hans Eysenck et al consider g to be 80% nature and 20% nurture.

It has been claimed that Eysenck misunderstood heritability, as do most people. Saying that g is 80% heritable does not mean that an individual's IQ is determined by a combination of 80% genetics and 20% environment. It means that 80% of the variation between individuals within a given population at a given time can be attributed to genetic factors. Applying it to an individual's IQ score is meaningless.

 

[Vixen]

To do what "g" does. That is a serious answer,

But I would go and look at the proponents of IQ/g you'll find they use a million words to say "how well smart people like me do on IQ tests".

Not a bad summing up. Sir Francis Galton who kicked it all off in the UK was an aristocrat and of course, the noble classes like to look down on the unwashed masses; so the reasoning is, 'We are up here, and you are down there. <fx hand gestures to emphasise the point> We are inherently considerably more superior to yeeouwwww.'

Brits being utterly class-obsessed loved all of this, hence people who go to Eton - the monied noble class - are held to be considerably more clever than yeeeouww, and even more clever than those upstart nouveau riche middle-classes who try to get in on scholarship bursaries, like Rishi and Boris. As for the the working classes: they know their place and can't pass the entrance exam because they never did Latin, French or the Classics from age eight.

Hence: Mensa was founded by Roland Berrill and Lancelot Ware at Lincoln College, Oxford, England on 1 October 1946. Apparently they got the idea on a train journey wherein one said to the other, "I say, old chap, aren't we frightfully clever? Wouldn't it be super to found a high-IQ society for people like ourselves?" To which came the reply, "What a smashing idea, old bean! And, darling, none off those frightful common people or people who wear skirts."

Berrill was an unashamed elitist, who regretted the passing of an aristocratic tradition. He regarded Mensa as "an aristocracy of the intellect". He noticed with some disappointment that a majority of Mensans appeared to have come from humble homes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Berrill

 

[Thermal]

To do what "g" does. That is a serious answer,

But I would go and look at the proponents of IQ/g you'll find they use a million words to say "how well smart people like me do on IQ tests".

My wife doesn't. She says pretty much what everyone else in her professional community says: g is about half of what is reflected in an IQ test. The rest is what you have already processed and incorporated into your mental abilities (crystallized, fluid, etc).

If someone scores well on a math test, it's probably because they have a combination of ability and learning in math. You wouldn't dismiss a high score saying "they are not good at math; they are good at taking math tests, like me".

 

[junkshop]

@Vixen: that is beautiful cake you have there.

I see that you are, additionally, trying to eat it.

 

[Klimax]

A couple of generations ago that was indeed the case, they have now progressed beyond that.

Assuming we are talking about FIs like ChatGPT and co, no they didn't. They are still same thing just with more trivial parameters and more data thrown at training. (plus bunch of smaller trivial models and code to aid in faking intelligence)

Just stopping by to drop in a memorable quote from a prominent NZer (can't remember who), who said: "Every time a person emigrates from New Zealand to Australia, the average IQ of both countries rises a little bit".

(Needs a moment to understand correctly......)

I heard that as a joke about two Czech universities respectively faculties. From Mathematical-physical faculty of Charles University to Prague University of Economics and Business...

 

[8enotto]

In the 90's in areas of the US it was parochial schools that were seen as the mark of excelence and prestigio. Dad paid good money to get you in there.

College followed for many of them. I did public schools and few cow town kids really made it into a college, most a tech school or straight into the job market.
I went into the military to avoid becoming a farmhand. The only thing I knew then.

The college and tech grads I bumped into years later were a bit miffed I made better money than many of them. And these were good years to find work easily. Just not ready made management positions for new grads.

IQ tests aside, it was real world skills and experience that carried us. A bit of work ethic helped a lot too.

 

[Trausti]

In the 90's in areas of the US it was parochial schools that were seen as the mark of excelence and prestigio. Dad paid good money to get you in there.

College followed for many of them. I did public schools and few cow town kids really made it into a college, most a tech school or straight into the job market.
I went into the military to avoid becoming a farmhand. The only thing I knew then.

The college and tech grads I bumped into years later were a bit miffed I made better money than many of them. And these were good years to find work easily. Just not ready made management positions for new grads.

IQ tests aside, it was real world skills and experience that carried us. A bit of work ethic helped a lot too.

College doesn't make you smart.

 

[MinnesotaBrant]

This is not about IQ, but I have an observation from my daughter about what the schools are doing with the honor programs. Apparently, they are taking the honors math teachers and having them teach special ed then putting the new, inexperienced teachers in for honors. Apparently, according to my daughter, the teacher does not lecture but instead just directs them to the proper chapter and has them do it themselves. My daughter is still passing because she takes good notes, but she has gone from being getting an A in the class to merely passing. I am guessing this is happening everywhere. Bianca says that some students still do well in this kind of environment. About school. She says that her tutors are better than her teachers in every area except her science teacher. Bianca is studying guitar, piano, and Japanese outside of class. Asked her if she needed a math tutor and she said no

 

[junkshop]

Those bastards! Giving the students the tools to do the work themselves, rather than giving them a correct answer to memorise!

◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ hell.

 

[Vixen]

This is not about IQ, but I have an observation from my daughter about what the schools are doing with the honor programs. Apparently, they are taking the honors math teachers and having them teach special ed then putting the new, inexperienced teachers in for honors. Apparently, according to my daughter, the teacher does not lecture but instead just directs them to the proper chapter and has them do it themselves. My daughter is still passing because she takes good notes, but she has gone from being getting an A in the class to merely passing. I am guessing this is happening everywhere. Bianca says that some students still do well in this kind of environment. About school. She says that her tutors are better than her teachers in every area except her science teacher. Bianca is studying guitar, piano, and Japanese outside of class. Asked her if she needed a math tutor and she said no

Tuition is very different from in my day when kids were pitted in keen competition with each other. My son's was similar to the above. It ended up with a small group of three or four in the class who were so advanced in maths they were just left to their own devices. In the end, the solution found was for them to teach the kids who were struggling. It's a great way to deepen one's knowledge of a subject by teaching others. It didn't do him any harm and his CV is very good-looking. Perhaps that might work for Bianca? Offer to help other kids...?

 

[dann]

First of all you would need to know the IQ scores of the same people BEFORE the suggested 3-point loss, plus a control group of those who didn't suffer from Covid who were also tested under proper superivsed conditions. You need a minimum sample size of at least 200 (the generally accepted sample size minimum). You also need to include those who gained an IQ point or two. You also need to rule out other factors, such as age or underlying conditions other than post-Covid.

I would be so bold as to suggest the person who wrote the article simply either made up the figure or it was based on an anecdotary conclusion drawn from a small handful of people who (a) claimed to have a certain IQ and/or (b) having complained of 'brain fog' performed badly so as to underline their point, albeit subconsciously.

Instead of boldly suggesting anything, you should look at the study itself. The "person who wrote the article" is Ziyad Al-Aly, one of the world's leading researchers of Long Covid. He didn't make anything up, and he linked to the actual study in the article. The sample size was quite a bit more than "at least 200":

Mounting research shows that COVID-19 leaves its mark on the brain, including significant drops in IQ scores (The Conversation/Yahoo, Nov 24, 2024)
Most recently, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine assessed cognitive abilities such as memory, planning and spatial reasoning in nearly 113,000 people who had previously had COVID-19. The researchers found that those who had been infected had significant deficits in memory and executive task performance.
This decline was evident among those infected in the early phase of the pandemic and those infected when the delta and omicron variants were dominant. These findings show that the risk of cognitive decline did not abate as the pandemic virus evolved from the ancestral strain to omicron.
In the same study, those who had mild and resolved COVID-19 showed cognitive decline equivalent to a three-point loss of IQ. In comparison, those with unresolved persistent symptoms, such as people with persistent shortness of breath or fatigue, had a six-point loss in IQ. Those who had been admitted to the intensive care unit for COVID-19 had a nine-point loss in IQ. Reinfection with the virus contributed an additional two-point loss in IQ, as compared with no reinfection.

 

[dann]

Since when has that been the claim? IQ is meant to provide a figure about an innate "power" g that an individual has. IQ proponents work hard to ignore the likes of improving IQ scores as more children are given better basic education.

Twenty years ago, I had a lot of fun with Danish members of Mensa when I was writing the two articles about IQ.
It was hilarious to see that, on the one hand, they insisted that IQ measured g, which was supposed to be a constant that was almost immutable by learning. On the contrary, g was supposed to determine everything in people's lives from their grades in school to their careers and earnings.
But on the other hand, they were giving each other advice on the Mensa forum on how to prepare for IQ tests to improve their test results.

I was IQ tested as part of the conscription process for compulsory military service. The doctor who administered the test told me that my test results were much too high, considering that my education was in languages and not in math or science. The irony is that it was probably due to the amount of time I had spent looking at IQ tests in preparation for my criticism of the concept of IQ. I more or less skipped math in high school because I found it boring and irrelevant, something I later regretted.

 

[dann]

Those bastards! Giving the students the tools to do the work themselves, rather than giving them a correct answer to memorise!

◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ hell.

Giving them the correct answer to memorise is obviously wrong. They won't learn anything that way.
But just directing them to the proper chapter and having them do it themselves won't work for all students.

 

[junkshop]

Giving them the correct answer to memorise is obviously wrong. They won't learn anything that way.
But just directing them to the proper chapter and having them do it themselves won't work for all students.

Well, yes. MB's story specifies that this a situation that honor (sic) students specifically are facing, not all students.

Also, there are good reasons* to look for corroborating evidence beyond MB's posts that this happens/happened. I mean no insult, but he is not a reliable narrator.

*see his thread in community.


ETA: putting the best teachers with the students that need the most help seems like the right thing to do, no?

 

[MinnesotaBrant]

Tuition is very different from in my day when kids were pitted in keen competition with each other. My son's was similar to the above. It ended up with a small group of three or four in the class who were so advanced in maths they were just left to their own devices. In the end, the solution found was for them to teach the kids who were struggling. It's a great way to deepen one's knowledge of a subject by teaching others. It didn't do him any harm and his CV is very good-looking. Perhaps that might work for Bianca? Offer to help other kids...?

Her math class now has turned into a kind of study hall according to my daughter. She is keeping up but not excelling or anything in it. I believe her previous teachers' complaint was that she was not putting enough effort into it and kind of skating. Her effort is mainly going into piano and guitar as well as Japanese and she states that she is getting more from her tutors than her school right now with the exception of her science teacher who is very good. She was also doing ballet and then later martial arts, but I ran out of money for that. I am now starting golf mainly because I had a niece as well as a daughter now who I have to treat well and engage

 

[Vixen]

Twenty years ago, I had a lot of fun with Danish members of Mensa when I was writing the two articles about IQ.
It was hilarious to see that, on the one hand, they insisted that IQ measured g, which was supposed to be a constant that was almost immutable by learning. On the contrary, g was supposed to determine everything in people's lives from their grades in school to their careers and earnings.
But on the other hand, they were giving each other advice on the Mensa forum on how to prepare for IQ tests to improve their test results.

I was IQ tested as part of the conscription process for compulsory military service. The doctor who administered the test told me that my test results were much too high, considering that my education was in languages and not in math or science. The irony is that it was probably due to the amount of time I had spent looking at IQ tests in preparation for my criticism of the concept of IQ. I more or less skipped math in high school because I found it boring and irrelevant, something I later regretted.

IQ-tests like any other are designed to test you at your maximum best, so practising them is fine. This is different from cheating, where you might memorise the questions and answers. It was this aspect that frustrated middle class parents in the UK leading the 11-plus to be abolished. No amount of coaching could make a 'dumb' kid bright.

 

[Vixen]

Her math class now has turned into a kind of study hall according to my daughter. She is keeping up but not excelling or anything in it. I believe her previous teachers' complaint was that she was not putting enough effort into it and kind of skating. Her effort is mainly going into piano and guitar as well as Japanese and she states that she is getting more from her tutors than her school right now with the exception of her science teacher who is very good. She was also doing ballet and then later martial arts, but I ran out of money for that. I am now starting golf mainly because I had a niece as well as a daughter now who I have to treat well and engage

Can I suggest you discover her personally most effective method of learning? It could be that book learning is not her forte. Perhaps she did better with a teacher at the front of the class explaining things, together with blackboard examples. Some people learn best visually, hence, online learning works for them (not dissimilar to completing your own 'workbook' in class). Others are auditory and respond well to one-to-one type tuition or old-style explanation in front of a class.

 

[MinnesotaBrant]

Her best learning style is when someone explains it to her so tutors are best for her. She does not go to a private school. She goes to a charter school with rather limited resources. She is starting to apply herself in school but still wants to spend time socializing with her friend though she is doing it less in class these days. About her math teacher. The teacher just gives the assignment then sometimes just sits there and cries for the rest of the hour. Kids are largely left to their own devices. She does know the subject and my daughter is starting to build a relationship with her, so she is getting some perks like being able to bring her notes into exams. The school is aware of this but wants to give her time get experience teaching class. Sometimes they have another teacher in the class to help

 

[Vixen]

Her best learning style is when someone explains it to her so tutors are best for her. She does not go to a private school. She goes to a charter school with rather limited resources. She is starting to apply herself in school but still wants to spend time socializing with her friend though she is doing it less in class these days. About her math teacher. The teacher just gives the assignment then sometimes just sits there and cries for the rest of the hour. Kids are largely left to their own devices. She does know the subject and my daughter is starting to build a relationship with her, so she is getting some perks like being able to bring her notes into exams. The school is aware of this but wants to give her time get experience teaching class. Sometimes they have another teacher in the class to help

There's your answer, perhaps; encourage your daughter to ask the teacher - during or after the lesson - to explain the more difficult examples, rather than your daughter stay in her comfort zone. I am sure this would also help the teacher come out of his or her shell as a win-win benefit.